Irish Furniture, Gutsy and Ebullient, in a Book and a Sale

Christie’s sale of English furniture on Monday in New York includes some 18th-century Irish antiques, each carefully notated in the catalog with a typically Irish winged-harp symbol. The harp is helpful, because it can be difficult to identify 18th-century Irish antiques.

Even experts become confused, but help is on the way. Yale University Press has just published “Irish Furniture,” by Desmond FitzGerald, an expert in Irish antiques, and James Peill, a furniture specialist at Christie’s New York. The book has been in the works for more than 40 years.

“In the 1960s, when I was a curator at the Victoria and Albert, there was practically no Irish furniture there,” Mr. FitzGerald said. “It was not regarded as having any importance, but I started buying it for myself.